The 2000 census determined that Pennsylvania was entitled to 19 Representatives in the United States Congress (two fewer than the previous delegation) and congressional election districts therefore had to be redrawn consistent with previous Supreme Court rulings. At the time the election districts were being drawn the Republican Party controlled both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature, and the Governor's office. According to the plaintiffs, prominent Republicans in the national party put pressure on the Assembly to redistrict along partisan lines "as a punitive measure against Democrats for having enacted pro-Democratic redistricting plans elsewhere" and to benefit the party in congressional elections in Pennsylvania.

The plurality opinion determined that partisan gerrymandering claims were nonjusticiable because there was no discernible and manageable standard for "adjudicating political gerrymandering claims." The court did not explicitly overturn its ruling in an earlier case, Davis v. Bandemer, which had found the issue of partisan gerrymandering within the judiciary's remit: five justices were unwilling to determine that partisan gerrymandering claims were nonjusticiable.

Justice Anthony Kennedy concurred with the ruling of the court to uphold the District Court's decision, but maintained that cases of political gerrymandering were not justiciable in accordance with the majority decision. He did not, however, foreclose the possibility that judicially manageable standards for gerrymandering could be developed in future cases before the Court.